AirVPN Vs HideMyAss: Uncover The Key Differences

  • Time to read: 15 min.
Affiliate Disclaimer

Full Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links to products/services. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

Do you wish to stay anonymous while surfing the web? If yes, then AirVPN could be the ideal solution for you.

While anybody can claim to be distinct nowadays, when it pertains to VPN suppliers, AirVPN shows that it truly is.

AirVPN sticks out from other VPN services because of its dedication to securing user privacy. Right from the start, the AirVPN website starts with an appeal for your trust, mentioning, “A VPN based on OpenVPN and operated by activists and hacktivists in defence of net neutrality, privacy and against censorship”.While anybody can declare to be special these days, when it concerns VPN suppliers, AirVPN reveals that it truly is.

AirVPN Home Page

They’ve been around a very long time, since 2010, when it was started with the aid of 2 lawyers and a small group of hackers and activists. The satellite communications supplier Iridium previously ran it, but AirVPN took over in November 2012. According to the owner’s listing, AirVPN, based in Perugia, is currently owned by Paolo Brini (Italy).

During the last years, it hasn’t been dogged by security scandals like some VPNs have. Nor has it been acquired by a bigger organization either.

Across their About Us and Mission pages, the company’s history is described and details the privacy projects that AirVPN has actually established or supported. These include an online encryption tool, a net neutrality monitor, and other projects such as Tor, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and WikiLeaks.

AirVPN takes the unconventional route and breaks the mold by supplying a VPN created by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.

How does AirVPN stack up against its competitors with such strong privacy qualifications?

AirVPN’s Key Features

Servers

AirVPN’s network is much smaller than most, with only 246 servers spread across 23 countries.

Most servers are in Europe (other than those in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong). A minor concern here is that the absence of variety of servers decreases the number of worldwide AirVPN users who might access geo-restricted services in their home country while maintaining their personal privacy.

AirVPN Servers

That stated, Air is popular for its exceptional performance across its server network, with many nations having high-performance physical individual servers.

They use transparent bandwidth allocation techniques to provide an accurate assessment of performance, without any overbooking or overselling. Plus, they are totally unlimited, with no speed constraints or time limits.

To establish a connection between your machine and their servers, they utilize OpenVPN and WireGuard (in beta). OpenVPN is the most protected and dependable way to create encrypted tunnels. It offers more security than the military.

Numerous ports and protocols are available; they use OpenVPN on the following ports: 80 TCP/UDP, 443 TCP/UDP, and 53 TCP/UDP. Every Air server directly supports OpenVPN over SSH, OpenVPN over SSL, and OpenVPN over Tor. Forget about PPTP and other risky protocols.

No preference is given to any application, protocol, or service when it comes down to it. Net Neutrality is maintained. Importantly, you can overcome internet constraints such as avoiding censorship, geographical restrictions, and traffic shaping.

The use is OpenVPN is a huge plus as it immediately improves users’ personal privacy and security and is highly reputable. The absence of WireGuard as standard might reveal Air isn’t rather keeping up with its rivals. That said, AirVPN says it is testing WireGuard, however it will not put the newer protocol fully in place until some of its technical and privacy concerns are addressed.

AirVPN has also added a lot for power users and tech-savvy individuals who like to experiment with things.

Switching is unlimited, so if you do not like one server, you can easily change servers as frequently as you like.

You can keep an eye on the existing load on each server, any existing concerns, and a history of previous problems on AirVPN’s network status page (which opens in a new tab).

There is a comprehensive specifications page for AirVPN’s servers, with info like the available ports, protocols, DNS server info (AirVPN has its own DNS server), and the IP addresses of each VPN server’s access points.

All of it is nice, however because there is no third-party audit, you have to trust that what is being offered will work. However looking at the active community forum or the in-depth open-source clients puts your mind at ease.

A nice feature of this is that you can see what other people say about the service prior to registering. You don’t have to take their word for it or the word of an audit.

Just How Private Is AirVPN, & Does It Keep Logs?

When it pertains to AirVPN’s no-logging policy, the company is extremely clear. Online personal privacy and security are the absolute priority, with protection from snoopers, data miners, and other entities that invade personal privacy. There is no personal information logged by AirVPN, which has a strong no-logging, tracking, or monitoring policy.

AirVPN does not track what you do when you’re connected to the VPN, date/time stamps, or your IP address. It just gathers non-identifiable “technical information” to keep the server running and enhance services, but you can ask for this info to be erased at any time. This makes it among the most privacy-friendly VPN services.

As a result, no one can identify you online; not even your ISP can figure out what sort of traffic or protocol you’re utilizing.

There’s no listening in, so you can connect to any wireless network without worrying about your computer and the Wi-Fi hotspot spying on your data.

Even the most ruthless surveillance, censoring, throttling, and traffic shaping techniques will fail versus AirVPN because your ISP and government will just see TCP or UDP communication on a single port.

They also say they adhere to EU personal privacy guidelines and that any servers outside the EU will be treated with the very same or higher levels of personal privacy and information protection as those in the EU.

You can get a brand-new IP address to hide your IP so that nobody can utilize it to learn who you are. You’ll stay safe with the top-level security supplied.

You can still connect to an AirVPN server through OpenVPN over SSH, SSL, or Tor if your ISP or nation blocks OpenVPN.

Open-source clients and a lively community forum allow you to get a sense of what present users are saying about the service prior to signing up.

All of AirVPN’s software is open-source, which is a big plus. This suggests that anybody can check out AirVPN’s security. ProtonVPN, Private Internet Access, and Mullvad VPN have open-source apps, but just ProtonVPN’s apps have actually been inspected by a 3rd party.

Concerning security, AirVPN’s cryptography is perhaps the best offered. The first exchange utilizes 4096-bit RSA to attain Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) through Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

When creating an account, you are not required to input any personal information, not even your genuine e-mail address. That’s excellent because it lets you prevent leaving any sort of digital footprint. Be aware that you will not be able to alter your account’s password if you do not utilize one.

Italy, where AirVPN is based, is a member of the 5/9/14 Eyes Alliances (a group of nations that share intelligence information). But even if the federal government requested for user details, AirVPN would have nothing to provide.

Who Or What Is Eddie??

The Eddie UI is the name of AirVPN’s primary open-source application, readily available on all major platforms and OSes, consisting of Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Despite Eddie’s significant ability with OpenVPN, it does not yet support WireGuard, so performance isn’t rather as good as those companies who utilize it as standard.

AirVPN Eddie Overview

Setting up the app is easy, and it has all the information you require to connect to a VPN.

Unfortunately, there are no maps or clearly indicated buttons to guide you. While it’s not difficult to get things working, it does not have the most user-friendly user interface, so it may be a more difficult learning curve for unskilled users.

With Windows, there are a lot of download choices. There are builds for various operating systems (from Windows XP to Windows 11), in 32- and 64-bit tastes, and in installable or portable formats. In addition, there’s a changelog to explain what’s brand-new and an archive of past releases in case the most existing doesn’t work on your setup.

After introducing it, select ‘Connect to a recommended server,’ and the app will connect to your closest area. You just click Disconnect when you’re completed. Simple enough for anyone, however Eddie can do a lot more because AirVPN provides more fine-tuned complete control over operations than any other VPN app we’ve seen.

AirVPN Eddie Servers List

2 crucial AirVPN features through Eddie are its auto-connect and kill switch. AirVPN allows you to connect when your computer system launches, however you can’t select which VPN server it will connect to; it will always connect to the one you selected last.

Although it defines “kill switch” throughout the settings, AirVPN has actually a tab called “network lock” that does the very same thing. The difference is that AirVPN’s “network lock” stops all traffic that isn’t going through its secure tunnel. Most basic kill switches only do this when the VPN is on, but you can establish the “network lock” to filter your traffic at all times.

Eddie’s layout is easy to understand. Along the top, there are 6 tabs: Overview, Servers, Countries, Speed, Stats, and Logs.

The Overview just shows the server to which you are connected, the download and upload speeds, the exit IP address, and the connection time. This is where you log into your account.

The Servers page shows all offered servers in the network, in addition to comprehensive information about each one, such as the server’s label, location, latency in milliseconds from your location, and present users and server load. Remarkable stuff!

This tab likewise has an amber/green signal that lets you understand whether a server is recommended for you.

The Countries page displays the number of servers offered in each country at a glimpse, together with a sign of server load and user numbers. Similar to the Servers page, the amber/green sign is also shown. Many servers have up to 1000 Mb/s bandwidth, while some smaller sized ones have a 100 Mb/s connection.

A green checkmark, a red “X,” and a blank box can be found on the right rail of the Countries tab. Highlight a nation, click the green checkmark, and the servers for that country will appear on the Servers tab. This whitelist is basically a favorites list; you may pick as many nations as you like.

If you click the red “x”, that country will be eliminated, efficiently making it a blocklist/denylist. To get rid of the green checkmark from a country, click the empty box.

By choosing a country, you are not instantly connected to a VPN server. Connect to a server by marking it and clicking on the “sign out” icon on the right-hand side (a right-facing arrow pointing into a square bracket).

The Speed tab displays a basic throughput graph with thin plot lines. Its temporal resolution can be altered, so you can see traffic from the last 10 seconds to one day.

While many apps display your existing VPN server location and IP address at most. Eddie’s Stats page also shows fine-grained info, such as the server’s location, load, existing user count, protocol, port, encryption algorithm, session start time and length, IPv6 exit address, information downloaded and uploaded, and far more.

Power users, in particular, should value the ability to use a VPN with all the details they could ever want about the numerous locations, down to the variety of users on a particular server. It’s a priceless resource.

Logs is an in-depth record of connections, routes, and other information.

This enables you to tweak the setup, such as whether it ought to always connect when opened, which protocol to utilize between UDP and TCP, and which port number. Proxies, Tor assistance, custom DNS servers, and routes can be modified.

The truly competent user can enter into Advanced and Expert Mode settings, which enable, among other things, sending orders to the OpenVPN Management User Interface via the Logs pane.

If the large function list appears scary, even if you are a VPN specialist, it might be difficult to figure out what particular settings do and how to get the desired outcomes. In addition, it differs from any other service in terms of personalization.

However, do not dismiss AirVPN’s Eddie just because of its intricacy. Remember that the program usually works fine on its own, and you’ll never see the settings up until you search for them. If you periodically yearn for power or configurability, the app will offer it.

AirVPN Software Configurations

Suppose you don’t wish to utilize Eddie. In that case, you can also set up a router or firewall to send out all traffic through a VPN tunnel. This works with routers running the open-source DD-WRT and Tomato firmware and the FreeBSD-based pfSense firewall.

How Good Is AirVPN’s Mobile App?

Although there isn’t any VPN software for iOS, you can use an extremely feature-rich Android VPN app rather. This software application provides the same substantial setup options as its desktop sibling and practical status information.

Separate pages for nation and server lists are what the Android app does not have that the desktop versions provides. Rather, you can expand a nation and select a particular city on the same page. Some helpful text additions make the details more reasonable, however it’s still rather tough to comprehend in some spots.

Android does not have as many settings as Windows. That’s not a significant critique; there are still many more than most people will ever need. The software likewise tries a bit more to help you, with additional text subtitles to describe what each alternative does.

Speeds/Performance

Utilizing OpenVPN, the Eddie Windows app from AirVPN generally connects rapidly and is ready to enter less than 10 seconds.

Online reviewers felt the connection monitoring was excellent, with the app discovering when the VPN tunnel drops, notifying us with a desktop notice, and reconnecting us in seconds.

In regards to privacy, leak tests showed that AirVPN’s Windows client didn’t have any DNS leaks, which shows that the Network Lock/Kill Switch works well.

Now let’s get to those speeds.

Since AirVPN just supports OpenVPN, it was always going to be slower than the WireGuard-equipped competitors.

Reviewers have reported speeds to be outstanding. One stated there wasn’t a single nation where they could grumble about the speed. On the contrary, it was really excellent overall.

While it wasn’t quite at the top tier for VPNs that use WireGuard, it was still more than fast enough for most people, and circumstances like HD gaming, video, and streaming conferencing certainly will not slow you down.

What AirVPN does not have is a more comprehensive variety of server places. This may restrict the ease of access of nearby servers for some users (which will always result in much better speeds). As a result, this VPN is an excellent option for most people in the United States and Europe, but possibly less so for other areas.

Streaming

Streaming the huge services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple Television, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and Discovery+ has actually been a mixed bag for reviewers. Some report that AirVPN is effective enough to bypass the VPN blocks used by Netflix in the USA, whereas others do not.

Some report that Air is quite poor for streaming and doesn’t work with any of the major streaming services. It appears to work with less-popular streaming apps like Peacock and Sony Crackle.

Another reviewer says services like BBC iPlayer and US Netflix hardly ever work, and when they do, finding the right server needs prolonged experimentation. This is most likely due to the fact that, unlike other providers, AirVPN does not provide servers that are optimised for accessing streaming websites.

Thankfully, on AirVPN’s site, there is a list of ‘blocked websites’ that users can examine to see if the situation with these streaming sites ever changes.

Streaming is certainly not an area in which AirVPN stands out, just since that’s not what the service is about, as they are more focused on privacy and security.

Does AirVPN Permit Torrenting?

Air supports P2P file-sharing on all of its servers. Just connect to the VPN server of your choice and get going.

Plus, you can use port forwarding to enhance your file-sharing performance. A number of applications, such as BitTorrent and eMule clients, would run badly without it, and your computer system’s shares might be inaccessible from the Web.

File sharing has good speeds on local servers, permits port forwarding for as much as 20 ports at once (which lets you connect to more peers for faster speeds), and deals with leading torrenting clients like qBitTorrent and uTorrent.

AirVPN’s integrated kill switch, triggered by default, will block all traffic from leaving your device if the VPN connection ever drops. That way, you won’t be sending unencrypted packets to the Internet. If you are file sharing, a kill switch is extremely hassle-free, especially if you need to leave your connection unattended.

Reviewers have actually shown torrenting to be remarkable, smooth running with quick download and upload speeds, and without any problems whatsoever.

AirVPN Plans & Rates

AirVPN provides a larger range of plans than most VPNs. As standard, each plan lets you connect up to five devices concurrently, so you can connect your PC, phone, tablet, and a couple of other gadgets all at the same time.

This makes it an exceptional choice for people who live in a household house or want to use a VPN on a public network. While 5 should suffice for the majority of people, other VPN companies offer 7 or even 10 if you need more.

Rates differs based on the subscription length, and each plan includes the exact same features. Many plans use good value; nevertheless, longer subscriptions provide the best deal.

The standard pricing is in Euros. They use the European Central Bank to provide real-time exchange rates for those overseas, so it can be easily transformed to and paid for in the currency of your choice.

The existing plans offered are:

Three days- EUR2

One month – EUR7

Three months – EUR15 – works out to EUR 5/month

Six months – EUR29 – works out to EUR 4.83/month

One year – EUR49 – works out to EUR 4.08/month

Two years – EUR79 – works out to EUR 3.29/month

Three years – EUR99 – works out to EUR 2.75/month

AirVPN accepts major credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and a whole load of cryptocurrencies, consisting of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Doge. Lots of international options are also accepted, such as Alipay and Giropay.

AirVPN offers a three-day complimentary trial, which can be obtained by sending out a message to the support team and utilizing the voucher code they send you.

There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee, as long as they haven’t broken the terms of service or utilized more than 5 GB of data during that time.

AirVPN Customer Assistance

AirVPN has a different customer support offering than lots of other VPNs. While it does not have live chat, it offers e-mail support and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and has an extremely active support forum with contributors from both the service itself and the community.

Notably, AirVPN’s email assistance isn’t contracted out however can be a little irregular with the time it requires to get a response. That said, the e-mail support is high quality, and the agents are friendly and valuable, but the detailed responses can be quite technical, which may put off those brand-new to VPNs.

AirVPN’s website has a lot of details, including a big Frequently asked questions section that is separated by subject.

AirVPN’s community forums cover several topics, however newbies will have the exact same difficulties comprehending a great deal of the tech lingo in the posts.

AirVPN Pros & Cons

Pros:

No logging Whatsoever.

Exceptional speeds with minimal loss.

Unrestricted P2P enabled with Port Forwarding.

Strong security on apps and servers alike, with advanced protocols and encryption.

Network Lock/Kill Switch.

Split tunneling.

Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, mobile, and routers.

Supports Tor over VPN.

Easy app installation and use.

Many, many advanced settings and customization choices in the client app.

Solid Customer Support.

Active Community Forums and Detailed Guides.

Excellent costs, especially for longer-term plans.

Optional block lists shield you from ads, adware, trackers, and harmful sources.

Cons:

Only fully supports OpenVPN.

Client app isn’t extremely easy to use or attractive like other services.

Client app may overwhelm newer users.

It is really hit and miss with streaming services.

No native iOS or ChromeOS apps.

Perhaps there are too many advanced options.

Located in 14-Eyes Country.

Server numbers are fairly low.

Rounding Things Up – Is AirVPN The Very Best Option?

The bottom line is that AirVPN is a strong, reputable, and safe VPN service with excellent rates. It’s plainly geared towards more power and advanced users, so those brand-new to VPNs will be much better served by a less, shall we say, specialized VPN supplier. However even new users might do much, much worse.

While it could be challenging to utilize if you’re brand-new to VPNs, you’ll receive much quicker speeds and better results than a number of its rival VPN competitors.

This VPN service is more focused on securing your personal privacy than unblocking streaming services like Netflix or Hulu when it comes down to it.

It may not guarantee the very same level of personal privacy and privacy as a service like Mullvad, which assigns you a random account number and enables you to pay in cash, AirVPN is still a great choice for consumers who value their privacy.

While it doesn’t hit the speed heights of a WireGuard service, performance-wise, it’s absolutely the very best purely OpenVPN service out there. In addition to being an excellent choice for online filesharing.

Highly recommended!

Click Here Or Below To Join AirVPN Today!!

AirVPN Vs ZenMate Comparison: Give Us 3 Mins, We’ll Give You The Details